Analysis of media bias in the Scottish Independence referendum campaign

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Severin Carrell Makes Shit Up

More propaganda from the Guardian’s resident pet jock, Severin Carrell in this Guardian article, this time attacking the First Minister on his comments about Scotland’s proposed membership in NATO.

Carrell writes: “Nato said it was widely agreed under international law that Scotland would be seen as a new state . . “

Really Severin? Who in NATO said it? Specifically? And did they actually speak for NATO, offering their “expert” legal opinion on the constitutionality of that, or did you simply make it up?

There is no such wide agreement, is there Sev? In fact, there is strong support for the view among legal experts that upon DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION, Scotland and England will both be treated as successor states.

Now Severin fails to identify the NATO sources he allegedly quotes. Let’s look a what this Unionist scribe actually feeds us:

An unidentified “NATO official” – how convenient.

Who does rabid Unionist propagandist Carrell actually name to back his unsubstantiated tale?

Well, there’s the far right Oxford educated ultra-royalist and former Deputy Private Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales, Sir Peter John Westmacott, KCMG LVO, the current Tory appointed United Kingdom ambassador to the U.S. Now Sir John has never worked for NATO and has no particular expertise with respect to that organisation. However, he can be relied upon to provide a quote undermining any statement of the Scottish First minister, and THAT is good enough for Unionist Carrell.

The only other quoted and named contributor backing Carrell’s propaganda thesis is discredited Labour Unionist pol, the ennobled George Islay MacNeill Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, KT, GCMG, FRSA, FRSE, PC , who once assured all that devolution would kill the Scottish independence movement stone dead. Robertson is notorious for his chronic lack of familiarity with the truth, but that is of no consequence to the Unionist Severin Carrell. Again, Severin has hand-picked a rabid unionist mouth piece who can be relied upon to provide a partisan quote.

Carrell weakly tries to enlist Kurt Volker, the former US ambassador to Nato, in this deception, but if you read Kurt Volker’s statement in full, you will find that he is very upbeat about Scotland’s membership of NATO. What Carrell has done here is to discard all that and selectively quote Volker to fit Carrell’s propaganda.

Now red-blooded Nationalists may reasonably argue that neither they not the Scottish electorate really give a toss whether Scotland becomes a member of NATO or not. However, Severin Carrell’s intent here is not to call an independent Scotland’s NATO membership into question but rather to portray Salmond as a dissembling flimflam artist.

This abuse by Carrell highlights the real scandal of this independence debate – the role of the media as uncompromising propaganda machine and attack-dog of the Unionist establishment.